[A study on the cause of urolithiasis of the upper urinary tract--clinical study of risk factors in the formation of stones in the upper urinary tract].

Various risk factors and inhibitors of the stone formation of the upper urinary tract have been pointed out in urine. We examined the amount of daily excretion of several important risk factors (calcium, phosphorus, urate and oxalate) and inhibitors (magnesium and citrate) in the urine of 21 healthy males, 13 male single stone formeks and recurrent and/or multiple stone formers before and after taking the regular diet which contains 500 mg of calcium and 1,000 mg of phosphorus a day. The daily excretion of calcium, phosphorus and magnesium indicated no significant differences among the 3 groups. The excretion of oxalate in urine for 24 hours was significantly decreased in the stone formers after taking the regular diet. The urinary excretion of the urate per body surface area in the stone formers was significantly higher than that in the healthy control. The amount of the excretion of the citrate in urine in the recurrent and/or multiple stone formers was significantly lower than that in the other 2 groups. Many patients of the recurrent and/or multiple urinary stones had more than two abnormal values of above-mentioned risk factors and inhibitors. These results suggest that the causes of the formation of the upper urinary stone were not single but multiple and that the dietary advice to these patients was important against the recurrence of the urolithiasis.